Skin
When did I begin to understand how vast the bruise on my
heart would get? So many dead—son, parents, dahlias, dogs.
Nobody knows, even her, how much grace I need. Not enough
in all the churches, the nuns’ prayers, the wild sky. My skin.
Perhaps the best knower, it’s felt the fury, the fear, the hidden,
the wanting. The architect of desire, its abrogation also. My friend
Susan says it’s the touch she misses the most, I wonder if all widows
feel that? If I will? My mother told me she never touched me unless
she had to, doctor’s orders, sowing the seeds for my starvation
as a baby. Maybe it was then, my body began its comprehension–
slow skin famine blackens the heart. Such a hungry woman, I’ve prayed
at so many altars for more sustenance than I have, so perhaps it’s right
that I am unheard.
Imaginary Scenario #2
In this version, blood would not be
thudding in my ears.
In this version, I would have resisted
those ape-like hands, told him to go to hell,
that I didn’t need the job.
In this version, my husband and I would have
known what to do about our cratering marriage
and done it.
In this version, I wouldn’t be the reckless heroine
of a litany of regrets.
In this version, I wouldn’t wander the dusty sidewalks
of Nepal or Bhutan in search of grace, instead finding a red
satin jacket I’ll never wear.
In this version, I would wear it.
Sharon Charde practiced family therapy for twenty-five years as a licensed professional counselor and has led writing groups for women since 1992. She has won numerous poetry awards, has been widely published in literary journals and anthologies, and has been nominated ten times for the Pushcart award. The BBC adapted her work for an hour-long radio broadcast in June 2012, and she has eight published collections of poetry, the latest in September 2021, The Glass is Already Broken, from Blue Light Press. Her newest collection What’s After Making Love was published by Fernwood Press in 2025.
From 1999 to 2016, she volunteered at a residential treatment facility teaching poetry to adjudicated young women, creating a collaborative group with a local private school for eleven of those years, and her memoir about that work I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent (Turner Publishing) was published in 2020. Charde has been awarded fellowships to the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, MacDowell, Ucross Foundation and The Corporation of Yaddo. She lives in Lakeville, Connecticut with her husband John.
